In the oilfield industry, many kinds of machinery and facilities are supported by underlying skids, so as to provide portability and ease of transport to and from an oilfield wellsite lease or site, typically via a flatbed transport trailer or truck. Historically, a principal feature of such skids has been to build a properly sized skid for each type of machinery or facility. For example, Dynawinch Industries Ltd., of Calgary, Alberta, Canada provides a double drum combination skid with control cabin and diesel power pack that is supported by a single skid measuring 5.3 m (210 in) L×2.4 m (94 in) W. As another example, Lee Specialties Ltd. of Red Deer, Alberta, Canada provide a three-piece e-line/combination skid which is comprised of a three separate skids, namely a power skid (supporting a ten kilowatt generator), a control skid (supporting an operators cabin and hydraulic system drum drive) and a drum skid (supporting a drum spooling system), wherein each of these separate skids are sized according to the machinery or facility they support, each therefore have different dimensions from the other.
Typically a large picker truck or crane is used to place this skid-mounted machinery or facility onto, or off of, a flat-bed transport trailer or truck. Alternatively a forklift or a winch tractor may be used to load and off-load of such skid-mounted loads, without the use of cranes. Suitable skilled operators, especially crane operators if cranes are utilized, will also be required to load and off-load such skid-mounted loads. During times of economic boom, as often experienced in the oilfield industry, there are often labor shortages for such skilled operators, which then can impact on the transportation of such skid-mounted loads.
Despite the increase in portability offered by the use of skids, the fact that there is generally no uniform or standardized sizing of these skids results in inefficiencies. For example, smaller skid-mounted loads may be handled with a forklift, but then when larger loads are brought, a picker truck will also be required to load or off-load. Moreover, suitable load and off-load equipment (such as forklifts, picker truck and cranes) will usually be needed at both the oilfield wellsite location (where the skid-mounted equipment is needed and utilized) and at the warehouse, shop or storage site (where the skid-mounted equipment is store, repaired and maintained); or such equipment will be needed to also be transported between these locations along with the skid-mounted loads. This adds to the cost associated with transporting skid-mounted loads to and from various oilfield wellsites.
A further problem with conventional skid-mounted loads is that chains and boomers (a link and lever mechanism which is used to tighten a chain) are normally used to secure such a skid-mounted load on a truck or trailer during transport. The securing and unsecuring of such chains add to the workload associated with transporting skid-mounted loads to and from oilfield locations. Moreover, this securing and unsecuring of chains and boomers present safety concerns to the person doing such securing and unsecuring.
What is needed is a transport system which is simple in design and does not have the above-mentioned disadvantages.